Students to get up to €2,000 compensation for education agency DUO's discrimination
The Cabinet is going to pay compensation of between €500 and €2,000 to people who the education agency DUO discriminated against during checks in their student days, Education Minister Rianne Letschert announced in a letter to parliament.
This involves nearly 25,000 students who DUO screened between 2012 and 2023 to ensure that they were really living away from home. Students living not with their parents receive a higher grant than those who do. DUO checked for abuse of this scheme, subjecting students to unjustified home visits, withdrew their grants, made students repay their grants, or fined them.
Ethnically diverse students were very overrepresented in the screenings - 86% of the students screened had a nationality other than Dutch-only. An investigation showed that DUO selected students for screening based on criteria that apply more to families who immigrated to the Netherlands.
In 2024, then-Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf apologized for this “unintentional discrimination. DUO has since started repaying withdrawn grants and imposed fines.
According to Minister Letschert, an increasing number of students have approached the Ministry to claim compensation. The Ministry of Education intends to pay this out and set aside €80 million for the purpose.
These students are entitled to compensation because they were checked based on unlawfully obtained data, the procedure was discriminatory, even if it wasn’t intentional, and their privacy was violated, the Minister said.
About 12,000 of the affected students will receive €500 in compensation. DUO visited them at home, but the visit had no consequences for their grants, and no measure was imposed.
About 10,000 students will receive €2,000 in compensation because DUO withdrew or adjusted their grant after a home check, or took another measure.
DUO approached another 4,000 students during a pilot phase of the fraud checks. These students will have to register themselves for potential compensation. DUO does not have a clear overview of who these students are.
If the students involved feel they are entitled to more compensation, they can opt for a “customized trajectory.” They will have to provide evidence and run the risk that the eventual compensation will be lower.
